Gibbs: 'Right decision' to read underwear bomber his rights

By Harry Siegel

01/24/10 10:31 AM EST

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Sunday defended the decision to read alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights after just 50 minutes of interrogation, saying that “FBI interrogators believe they got valuable intelligence and were able to get all that they could out of him.”

“That decision was made by the Justice Department and the FBI by experienced FBI interrogators, Gibbs said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But make no mistake — Abdulmutallab was interrogated and valuable information was gotten by those experienced interrogators.”

After he was read his rights, Abdulmutallab stopped cooperating with investigators.

“The Department of Justice made the right decision, as did those FBI agents,” Gibbs said.

White House adviser David Axelrod, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” also dismissed “this notion that he was lawyered up and didn’t give us information.”

“Many of the people who are criticizing us now were celebrating” criminal trials for terrorists held under President George W. Bush, said Axelrod, pointing to former Vice President Dick Cheney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “All I can assume is that there are politics at play.”

Asked about the audiotape purportedly by Osama bin Laden released Sunday by Al Jazeera, in which the Al Qaeda head claimed responsibility for Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day bid to blow up a Detroit-bound plane, Gibbs said, “Nobody’s had a chance to authenticate that tape.

“Everybody in this world, I think, understands this is somebody who has to pop up in our lives over audiotape because he is nothing but a cowardly, murderous terrorist who hopefully, someday soon, will be caught and brought to justice,” Gibbs said.

In another section of the audiotape that Al Jazeera broadcast, the voice says: “God willing, our attacks will continue as long as you support the Israelis, and may peace be on those who follow guidance.”